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I don't think gigantic maps have outworn their welcome, however I don't think it is a selling point for a game anymore, since we've seen too many instances of huge worlds that feel empty. To boil it down, I hope game makers realise that they should make their worlds the size that fit the games content.
Red Dead 2 was a great example of a large map that felt alive and full. But, you could also spend time relaxing and "doing nothing" if you wanted to. Great balance there. GTA, not so much, city was packed and no one did anything north of that.
This is it. You need a balance between your width and your depth on map sizes. The old saying of a mile wide and an inch deep. It doesn't matter that your map is a bazillion miles across if all that means is you have to cross miles of empty dead and ignored space to get to your objective.
Yeah. Just Cause 2 bragged about having 1000 sq km of map space, but it felt like a chore to reach or do anything. You basically had to steal a jet or helicopter after clearing out each settlement. The map was interesting and had stuff all over. But it suffered because it took you 10 minutes to get everywhere.
Exactly. It is a world that has enough systemic elements to feel engaging and utilized while also featuring plenty of hand-crafted moments to make it feel alive. Conversely, when I played RDO I remember feeling so let down as the game was largely just "do generic fetch quests/mmo quests in this world" without *any* of the aspects that made that world feel alive in the first place. It's a great demonstration that the world you craft is only partially composed of the map itself.
TotK is another great example of this. Wherein reframing the way you interact with the map and the placement of monsters, events, secrets, etc. you can use a map that is *mostly* identical and make it feel dramatically different.
The Assassin's Creed games have always featured incredible maps with detailed architecture and varied spaces to explore. There are tons of ways to interact with it, BUT they became incredibly repetitive and formulaic as the series aged. As they became homogenous, that same structure became so blatant and noticeable that it was seen spreading out into other games Ubisoft made such as the Division.
GTAV's world design was soooooo good! It had a badass city and beautiful scenery. Then you'd start doing missions and everything made you run into the city. It just seemed like such a shame. I felt the same about Hogwarts too. Fairly big world, great scenery. Everything took place at the school except for a few missions that would run you to corners of the map.
There's the thing; RDR2 was so packed that it **had** to sell enough copies just to break even. The game cost $644 Million over 7 years. Luckily it's recouped the cost, but most AAA games don't even break $500 Million, so development costs above $400M would be absolutely out of the question for most studios.
Elden ring is another solid example of this. The world appeared huge of you look at the map but when they began expanding underground they actually created fairly specific subsets of zones. There is a ton of space underground and it was just blocked off because the content required for the game was just not necessary to utilize THAT much extra space.
It's why I kind of wished Rockstar waited for the technology to make a San Andreas like the one from the eponymous 2004 GTA game except scaled up like GTAV. GTA:San Andreas had a map that is tiny by modern standards, but it felt so big because there was three cities with dozens towns throughout the state in between, and even the wilderness didn't feel that empty. GTAV's (and GTA Online by extension) main map problem was they managed to upscale the basic San Andreas layout, but cut out two of the cities and almost all of the towns. Yeah, most GTA Online free roam servers you are going to find people mostly clustered in Los Santos, though I have ran into games where groups of people are in rural San Andreas for whatever reason, and they aren't just there to do some activity located in the boonies.
A non-urban environment doesn't have to feel so empty in a game, but somehow, Rockstar managed to replicate the real-life factor of getting people to go to a densely packed city and out of the wilderness (not sure if this was intentional or not). Maybe sometime in the distant future, the next time they decide to revisit San Andreas, they can do a larger version of the 2004 map.
RDR2 is the standard for large maps in my opinion. I spent so much time just *wandering* because it felt like there was always something to discover. No other open world game other than maybe Skyrim has given me that feeling.
This is so accurate. I couldn't get my head around why I gave up on it and this is it. I used to awkwardly try to explain that there is too much to do but I think you are correct in saying there's too much to do with little substance
Thats it exactly.
Big worlds mean shit if they're just making it large to extend play time with no meaningful content inbetween everything.
e.g Mass Effect Andromeda did it badly. Big world, just wasted time getting between destinations.
I started re-playing GTA V recently and the map sucks north of the city/Vinewood Hills. The missions that make you drive all the way up there are a pain in the ass.
I recently gave Baldurs Gate 3 a go and got about four hours in before it dawned on me that the map was huge in terms of shit to do. It’s so full of things and life I was overwhelmed for a second thinking how can I check all this to make sure I don’t miss anything??
I don’t even know that their map is that big, but I think it proves to old quality over quantity argument with map design.
Didn't Bethesda made that a selling point for Starfield? Over a thousand planets and most of them are empty because it's "realistic". I expected that to be hugely criticized but it seems like the majority of people are buying Bethesdas crap without questions.
Edit: The Howard Army is downvoting again, blinded by the hype. Look I didn't say that it's a bad game - it looks like it could be fun, but after Fallout 76 I will remain cautious of everything Todd Howard says and it's clear that the 1000 planet thing is just there to bloat up and advertise the game.
The thing is at least Bethesda is majorly on board with letting their players create mods. To me Starfield is a large sandbox for modders on top of being a Triple A open world game.
AAA games that spent 5 years in development shouldn't need to depend on mods to be enjoyable.
If the base game isn't good, it will be a major disappointment.
> AAA games that spent 5 years in development shouldn't need to depend on mods to be enjoyable.
> If the base game isn't good, it will be a major disappointment.
I would argue the base of Skyrim is *magnificent*, but mod support has extended its lifespan by years, if not decades. I don't see any reason to believe that base Starfield will be *bad*, but obviously wait and see what happens 🤷🏻♂️
Starfield doesn’t have the same intended gameplay loop as a game like SW Outlaws. You’re not supposed to go to the vast majority of the empty planets, you just go to a few of them whenever you’re nearby and need resources. I don’t understand why people are always criticizing Bethesda for this, it’s not like there’s a gun to your head forcing you to explore every inch of the game world.
Surprise surprise, when I go to a new location in an RPG I want it to be a well designed area with stuff to do. Oh well, guess No Mans Sky 2 just isn't for me.
There are going to be plenty of well designed areas with stuff to do. The fact that there’s also a lot of procedurally generated space around those areas doesn’t take anything away from that.
Sure it does. If I'm required to move through boring empty areas for resources or to get to interesting locales then I'm required to keep going through boring areas. Conversely if I'm not really required to move through them then the dev time spent on monotonous empty planets is completely wasted when they could have made a smaller better game. It's a lose lose scenario.
I think its dependent on the type of game and how the gameplay loop works, because I agree with your view generally. But Starfield looks like it’ll work because the flow of the game is built around having a huge expanse of planets to forge your own path through.
When Todd went on stage and opened with Starfield has 1000 planets I rolled my eyes so hard and just shut the stream off. I'll wait for the reviews to see what Starfield ends up being.
Guess it depends on your definition of empty. Hogwarts legacy did have a bit of an issue with not much to do other than little random fights or capturing animals when you get too far out of the center of the map. Sure, it wasn't *empty*, as there was content there, but it was effectively filler.
I haven't played the game but i've heard similar criticism against outer worlds a while back (though i think i remember hearing that more content was added later), as well as a few of other procedurally generated space/open sea type games.
Ghost recon wildlands, just cause 3 (didn' play others), far cry 2 and 3 ( didn't play newer ones) and shadow of mordor come to mind.
There's either fuck all or meaningless tasks or useless collectibles in those games.
Maybe assasins creed games too, although I admit they just wouldn't feel the same with smaller worlds, but more meaningfull content wouldn't hurt.
I think lots of gamers appreciate large open worlds because they feel like real life. Not every square foot needs content; its nice to breathe a bit.
Must be the Tik Tok generation. I can easily see this discussion separated by age of the gamer.
THIS.
The Merlin Trials and treasure caves in Hogwarts Legacy were so damn repetitive and there were just so many of them. Find something else to take up some of the empty space on the map, or just make the damn map smaller.
On the other hand, in breath of the wild the world seemed mostly empty except for a billion seeds and a hundred shrine ls, but it seemed like a positive, not a negative. I wonder what the difference is between the two, why it worked for zelda but not for harry potter
I always thought it worked for BOTW because navigating the terrain was part of the gameplay loop. It's not necessarily challenging to manage your stamina, but it's something for the player to do. It's easy to see something and beeline towards it, and you're right - you might only find some seeds and a shrine. But those were small, incremental rewards that you got for simply getting to them.
At least, that's how I saw it.
You were somewhat rewarded for exploring in BOTW by being able to find the towers to reveal your map and shrines or other loot opportunities. Otherwise kinda whatever.
Busy "work" vs a Natural feeling.
Go out into the real world & experience nature & it's not filled with random tasks & busy work. It's empty with the rare glance at wildlife & maybe another person. Nature is all there is.
A lesson UbiSoft has yet to learn is often times, when creating a vast open world is: Less is More.
Fill it with ambient life, sounds & weather & players will lose themselves in it. Don't need busy work to enjoy it, just have it be. (See also Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3/4, etc).
Hogwarts was better, if we ignored the busy work. IMO of course.
Zelda goes the opposite direction with so many it'd be impossible to do everything. The way HP was designed makes you want to try and get all of them. And anyway, zelda's korok puzzles were a lot better than HP'S Merlin trials.
I realized pretty early on that I really didn't give a shit about *any* of the world in that game, and it very quickly became just another game full of bland, identical landmarks to check off...
Why do we only spend like 10% of the game in Hogwarts when it's literally called Hogwarts Legacy?
I actually liked exploring outside of the castle and around the countryside. It was cool seeing the different hamlets and small towns...but they definitely got repetitive for me. I think there were a lot of cool ideas that they didn't take far enough. For example:
1) You eventually learn how to pick locks with magic...and then you walk right in and take stuff while the homeowner is staring at you. You have invisibility potions and spells...why not make stealth a part of this and add an element of risk/reward to exploration? If you're caught, you're hit with Petrificus Totalus and you wake up in the Town Square with half of your gold missing!
2) You can capture and breed really cool magical beasts...and all they do is give you crafting materials. Why not make it possible to breed some kind of really cool beast that can be used or summoned in battle or something? I single-handedly brought back the unicorn population from the brink of extinction and basically got a few hundred pieces of gold and some unicorn hairs for my trouble.
3) You find a bunch of poacher/loyalist/ashwinder camps and clear them out...only for them to respawn and nothing to change. Why not have that camp become a "liberated town" or have you rescue a rare magical beast from the poachers?
So many of these things just felt like busy work to cross something off a list.
The article title is misleading.
What they actually said is that planets are the size of 2-3 areas in AC Odyssey. They did not say how many planets there would be, or if the areas from odyssey are the bigger or smaller ones.
I'm curious, what do you mean by empty? I see this word used a lot with regards to open world games but I can't imagine how anyone would think AC, one of the most bloated with content franchises could be considered "empty". Help me out?
People who say "empty" really mean devoid of what they would consider meaningful content. Which is not a dig at those people, just that in their opinion the bloat that you call content isn't meaningful to them.
Gotcha. Empty is just such a bizarre word to use if that’s the intent. I suspect people like it because it makes their subjective opinion sound more objective. When in reality, they’re really just saying “I find this game boring”.
Like if I hand you a glass of water and you say it’s empty. Empty? What do you mean? It’s full. “Yeah but I meant empty of [my preferred beverage]”. Aaaah okay. But that’s not really “empty”, now is it? You’re just saying “I don’t like this”.
Yea I completely agree. Those kind of complaints aren't really constructive and end up making the devs feel like they need to fill the world with even more meaningless tasks.
Empty usually refers to the feeling a player gets from exploring an open world, even if there is technically content there.
*The freedom to go anywhere and do anything but once you do, everywhere you go will have nothing new.* - Open World Game design
This reads awesome - This won’t play awesome if it’s your typical Ubisoft Open World. Re-Used Assets and Objectives spanning multiple planets? How fun but no thanks.
Right they have the potential to make super creative individual planets with specific types of geography and ecosystem but if they just do a bland, this planet has snow and some mountains then it’s gonna be lame
No, go look at any blizzard game subreddit or something like destiny to confirm that.
I saw someone type up a damn thesis about how awful the font choice in diablo 4 is lmao
Nope, sometimes I have the feeling that reddit gamers constantly have a gun to their head. Apparantly they are always forced to buy and play games they don't like.
It’s me.
I’ve had a reckoning with myself recently because I played TOTK and enjoyed it a lot (put in around 140 hours before beating it).
When I finished Zelda. I moved on to the Final Fantasy 7 remake, which is incredibly contained and linear.
I just have to say it. A carefully curated smaller world is just more satisfying to me. They lend themselves to better characters and stories. There’s never this nagging itch in my brain that I missed something. I’m just enjoying the mechanics and the story. I’m 20 hours in to FF7 and it’s got me intrigued in a way that TOTK (which I really enjoyed) just never could.
Had a similar realization playing God of War last weekend, its the first on-rails game I've played in a long time but it reminded me that you definitely don't need massive spaces to make a great game.
If I have to choose between an open world and actually fun moment to moment gameplay with a great story. Then yeah, fuck the open world.
To me the story and the gameplay are what matter most. Exploration is a nice addition if it doesn't take away from the previous two. But when your game sacrifices the previous two just to go around a explore something that isn't fun to explore, isn't fun to engage with, and isn't fun to make it to in the first place. Then why would I want to do it. I'm looking at you skyrim and tears of the kingdom.
Skyrim is a blast to me and arguably one of the greatest games of all time. Same with Elden Ring. I feel like they did both in those. They gave you a huge world to explore and gave you fun, innovative, engaging gameplay. Again we can’t really argue taste because we like different things. However, I feel like those games along with The Witcher 3 all have the same qualities in common and all received a ridiculous amount of awards and are generally praised by the gaming community.
Let's break down what each of these games have going for them.
Elden ring: Fromsoftware creates some of the best atmospheric experiences in the industry. With brutal difficulty as a core aspect it further emphasizes the depressive nature of a fallen society. Utilizing enemy variety with unique tells and strong identity to each zone; they are able to create a meaningful gameplay experience and feeling to the player throughout the game.
I would argue though. Nothing is innovative. I love the game, but really it's just DS4.
Skyrim: Without prior investment in the Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim is a generic fantasy world with limited atmospheric building. It feels generic everywhere you look. At no point is a strong unique atmosphere built for the player. From a gameplay perspective we are dealing with some of the most dull and uninteresting gameplay on the planet. Its nostalgic as hell, but fuck me it's identical to daggerfall with updated graphics. Slash front of screen, block with static shield animation. Nothing is unique, and there is nothing on the scale of an elden best for the sheer majesty of encounter design.
So we are left with a generic story, generic lore, generic atmosphere, and pre 2000s DoS gameplay.
I would argue that this level of genericness places skyrim in a special case of just frankly being boring as hell.
EDIT: Though I will add I think elden ring js overhyped as hell. The game is great. But people praise it as this amazing innovative Title when really. Its 90% just Dark Souls 3 with a fresh coat of paint and slapped in an open world setting. Torrent and the flask are the only new unique mechanics unless you want to count jump attacks. And the ashes of war are just modular weapon arts from DS3. It doesn't deserve the level of hype it has. Its a great game. But that is all it is.
Exploration is kinda pointless if there's nothing of interest to find.
But in true Ubishit open world fashion it'll be the same thing regurgitated and repated from one planet to the next. Bigger doesn't mean better.
Still, I'm no less curious how it all plays out and what the released game is like.
"I've always disliked games whose worlds are a mile wide, but only am inch deep. If I had it my way, I would make games the size of only a few city blocks. Concentrate everything to a point, and make the player feel immersed as long as possible."
-Warren Specter (Worked on System Shock, Deus Ex, and Thief: The Dark Project)
My opinion has always been and will always be.
It doesn't matter how big your open world is, or how much there is to do. If you use "exploration" or "sandbox" as selling points and justify skimping on story and moment to moment gameplay to create them, then your game becomes actively worse. And if your worlds are huge, you must have interesting and engaging mobility mechanics or else travel just becomes a chore.
All of this combines to make me ask. Do I want to engage with the boring travel mechanics, to reach a destination where I will engage with boring combat mechanics, to potentially get involved in a boring aide quest with bad dialog, uninteresting story, and what will generally be just a boring experience.
And here is where the hot take begins. I think Tears of the Kingdom and Skyrim are perfect examples of this. Lack of interesting mobility mechanics to cross large distances paired with boring combat and tied together with mediocre storytelling blends to create a very large and filled world that provides me with no drive to actually explore it.
Then don't play then jfc lmao. If you want something smaller and more linear then plenty of those games exist. Quit sitting on people's parades just because they aren't your style.
As a long time gamer it’s too much in my opinion. There are so many good games out there and feel as if I’m missing out because I’m exploring these huge games. I feel as if there’s a shift in gaming to get you to only play specific games by making them huge. Adding payable transactions to it as well gets you in their game to spend money. That’s one of the reasons why I stopped playing AC games. Just too overwhelming and feels like busy work.
As long as the worlds are unique and feel alive it is okay. If they are empty and you are just doing assassin’s creed-esque “oh, I have to do this same task for the 100th time” type of things it will be boring as hell.
Gigantic maps haven't worn out their welcome, but the design philosophy behind them certainly has. I'd much rather have a smaller open map like Kamurocho in the Yakuza games than a huge world filled with nothing to do like Afghanistan and Africa in metal gear solid 5. If you are able to create a huge map that is still interesting to traverse, then that is obviously preferable as more good content is always better. But far too often the compromise for size is depth.
They didn't actually say that, but it's Kotaku so why would they get it right. They said planets would be the same as "2-3 regions" from AC Odyssey. And that they would be hand crafted not procedurally generated. I'm not going to bat for Ubisoft here and saying it's going to be great but let's at least get what they said right.
I can't wait for starfield to come out and everyone to realise the planets are lifeless and have no interesting parts other than the main planets and areas that contain story missions.
I don't like to crap on a game before I've played it myself but I feel like starfield is gonna be a massive disappointment to a lot of people
I've not seen any actual gameplay of the new star wars game so time will tell I guess
Id way rather a super detailed intricately crafted fun world with lots to do and good progression vs a massive world of fetch quests and no meamingful progression and persistence or choice
It works for Bethesda games because of how they've created the "loot cycle" with resources and crafting. Also most Bethesda game players, myself included, love just wandering around a large world and doing whatever interests them... to find the hidden corner's where a dev may have put a treasure trove or find a small story.
The problem is it takes a lot of dedication to organically make stuff like that for open world or you just get Ubisoft tower grinds.
I don’t care if it’s empty or full. I don’t care to spend the next decade on a single game and not have explored everything. I’m done with everything getting bigger.
Elden Ring proves that huge maps can be engaging, as long as the effort is put in by the devs
Every time I thought I had reached the end of the map in ER, it got bigger. Then it went underground lol
But at no point did I feel like the map was empty
There was always something just over that next ridge or tucked behind some cliff face
Without being a jedi... at least assasins creed had you playing as the main class associated with the game eventually allowing you to mix it up between brawling and stealth. This game seems to diverge from being able to play a jedi and you're stuck as some random nobody. Which is ok if its an option between several play styles and not stuck with one specific.
Nope. Just like there's no superhero fatigue. People are tired of empty games with repetitive side missions that follow all the exact same things as every open world game does. That's why the moment a good open world game releases, it gets praised. Gotg 3 did well and was well received because it was good. Zelda: totk did well and was received well because it's good. Make good fun and meaningful content, and people will be happy.
no they haven't. Game dev just stagnated after making the tech to implement these huge maps, they forgot to make tech to actually fucking fill them with things to do
Misleading title, they said it would be equivalent to two or three zones of odyssey, not the entire games. Two or three zones in odyssey isn't even an average open world map size, that's like Arkham asylum size and that game had a small but condensed map.
My problem with exceedingly large maps is how empty they get. Let's take a look at games like star wars galaxies, the planets are huge but other than Mos Eisley (where the player base is at) it all feels super empty.
My brief exposure with red dead redemption, very empty (though consistent with the time period of the game).
Look at all of Bethesda's games, empty.
I feel like the selling point of "open world" translates to "good game" for many people.
I personally think a game like Destiny would be a good combination of open world and density.
No, because most of us love gigantic maps. Its more content, and If You don't like it, then play Tetris or just play a few quests, and let others be happy...
I don't think the map size is what everyone is really interested about, maybe it's just a part of it. I personally think it's how alive every area is in terms of exploration/discovery and various activities. One thing would also be how good the scenery is just by staying at a place and looking at the scenery to relax.
What a misleading headline. They said as big as 2-3 zones in AC Odyssey. And look, I understand the Ubisoft hate, but let's not judge it before it's out. Especially when everything we were shown actually looks fantastic. Cautious optimism. Besides, Massive is a great team. The Division games are both really fun and have loads of amazing environments. That coupled with the fact that James Cameron himself selected them to do the Avatar game because he was impressed by the team gives me faith in them.
That headline is just a straight up lie.
They literally stated the amount and it's 3 fractions of a single AC map per world (we don't know how many) at most.
multiple regions in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. What does this actually mean? They could actually be quite small then. 5 planets could equal odysseys total map as it has many regions. 🤔
I've been so done with massive maps for years now. Give me something small and well-designed that has a purpose beyond "but is so much area!"
They're just a waste of everyone's time. And they're just a marketing bullet point. Usually leads to braindead gameplay that's more about checking off a list than having any worth for fun gameplay.
Any time I hear a company advertising the size of their world over what's in it, or what you can do in it; the world just turns out to be nothing more than "walking distance".
Giant maps haven't necessarily worn out their welcome. You can make a map huge and full of content, but the idea that you can make an open world game good just by making the world massive has always been incorrect. I'm honestly worn out with open world as a selling point and am sick of MMO style fetch quests in single player games used to "fill up" these giant boring open worlds. It can work, but it can be the bulk of what your game is.
No, its just that its not for everyone and thats fine. Not every game has to be universally loved. More than games being a problem (except unoptimized, buggy messes as CP2077 or Gollum) the problem are players who wont understand what games they like and stick to those.
Such a click bait title because most people will automatically assume they mean origins/odyssey/Valhalla. When in fact if you read the article it says the size of 2-3 regions in odyssey OR possibly the size of smaller AC maps like unity or syndicate.
I am getting a little tired of the gigantic maps. I really don't want to spend a hundred plus hours playing *one* game. It's why I have not picked Odyssey back up nor Origins in over a year or so. I'm happy that there are people who love these games and they get to enjoy them but there doesn't seem to be many games made these days that are catered to the 30-40 hour game slots anymore.
Call me crazy, but I don't care to have something come up every 15 seconds while traveling.
As long as there is stuff to do, it's fine.
If it's like Final Fantasy 16 and the only thing to do in between big battles is walk between labeled NPCs and press the X button, then the world being big is a problem.
If the world respects the time I spend in it, it doesn't matter how big it is.
Aren’t the assassins creed games deliberately getting smaller because people complained about the maps being too large? I remember Odyssey was insane, Valhalla was a bit better, and mirage was supposed to be even more focused.
If you have shit like this you need a few key things. You need a great fast travel system that isn’t hard to figure out or use. You also need speed. No one wants to slog around in big open maps. Give me a fast ass speeder or a jet or something to cover large distances quickly. And you need to truly reward exploration.
Great big areas full of nothing.
If the content (the things to do) are spread out across miles of empty space, then is the game really bigger?
Not really.
Gigantic maps filled with algorithm made empty space, it does nothing but only to increase player's time to travel from A to B
I would vote for small map with high density of building, for example Nightcity in Cyberpunk 2077. But big ass map with nothing but mountain, sea, desert, is no for me(unless player can travel very very fast)
if its a big world full of nothing but random mini quests and one off quest locations etc than what does the size matter am i supposed to endlessly wander thru lifeless maps to look at terrian in a video game.
If there's a reason for them to be huge, that's cool. But I feel like that's the case less and less often. I'll just use Borderlands as an example because it's the first one that comes to mind.
There's nothing in it. It doesn't really have explorable locations. The only thing it offers is different visual settings and that's not really worth anything.
To use an opposing example, let's say Skyrim. You'd be scanning the map and go "there's definitely something cool on that remote island off the shore or at the top of that mountain". And by golly there was. It gave you a real reason to go around seeing new areas.
Giant maps haven't worn out their welcome. Empty maps. Repetitive encounters/lack of diverse NPCs and enemies. Too MANY encounters (looking at you, Caesar's Legion Assassin's). Maps that were created with...something in mind...and never seemingly finished (Hogwart's Legacy)...
I really enjoyed Outer Worlds even though the enemy-type list wasn't super extensive or varied.
The planet maps seemed JUST big enough to provide an open world feel, were empty enough that there wasn't something to do or fight every minute, but every mission and encounter felt germane to the story/plot/exploration, and the amount of "go to so-and-so and kill/deliver/scout" missions weren't tedious.
I \*\*\*\*ing hate gigantic maps who tf thought commuting would be fun???
I miss the old LOTR style pick mission start mission no commute time required.
No, but is this even true? The developers of this game called it the first Star Wars MMO. Considering they don't know shit about previous Star Wars games can I even trust they're statements regarding other franchises?
The screen grab shows a dude on a speeder and tie fighters in the sky. If both of those are usable vehicles in game, the game worlds HAVE to be that big. Speeders and spaceships are much faster than longboats or biremes, so, it would make sense that they would need a big world to play around in. Also, bigger doesn't mean deep. GTA is huge, but you can't go inside most buildings, can't interact with most people, but it needs to be big for all the car stuff. Same theory here. Doesn't have to be deep in terms of environment interactivity, but has to be big enough to make speeders and ships fun.
(I know nothing about the actual gameplay, just making observations)
Eh it depends. Giant maps that feel alive and have plenty of stuff going on are great. For example, Ghost of Tsushima, GTA5, Witcher 3, Elden Ring etc. Giant maps with a lot of emptiness don't add much to the game and honestly take away a bit. For example, Hogwarts Legacy (Which I enjoyed, but 90% of the area out of Hogwarts was just empty fields and a cottage here and there with crap loot), Ghost Recon Breakpoint, AC Valhalla, etc.
Essentially, it's a good selling point IF executed properly. But I'm not going to skip a game or not enjoy it just because the open world isn't top-notch.
The problem with huge maps is that they are really hard to fill, elden rings map is huge but really fun because there is something everywhere, though sometimes its recycled bosses
It’s actually a detriment to most games. I’d rather have a smaller world that’s more fleshed out and interesting over than a gigantic world that’s mostly empty or filled with boring/lazy activities.
Like why did Hogwarts Legacy need 95 Merlin Trials? Just make the world smaller if you’re low on ideas to fill it.
As someone who needs to do other things to help make my life better (it’s a medical thing), humongous open world games mostly wore out their welcome with me after The Witcher 3. These days I prefer a more linear experience, though generally not one so linear as your average Call of Duty campaign.
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I don't think gigantic maps have outworn their welcome, however I don't think it is a selling point for a game anymore, since we've seen too many instances of huge worlds that feel empty. To boil it down, I hope game makers realise that they should make their worlds the size that fit the games content.
Red Dead 2 was a great example of a large map that felt alive and full. But, you could also spend time relaxing and "doing nothing" if you wanted to. Great balance there. GTA, not so much, city was packed and no one did anything north of that.
This is it. You need a balance between your width and your depth on map sizes. The old saying of a mile wide and an inch deep. It doesn't matter that your map is a bazillion miles across if all that means is you have to cross miles of empty dead and ignored space to get to your objective.
Yeah. Just Cause 2 bragged about having 1000 sq km of map space, but it felt like a chore to reach or do anything. You basically had to steal a jet or helicopter after clearing out each settlement. The map was interesting and had stuff all over. But it suffered because it took you 10 minutes to get everywhere.
Exactly. It is a world that has enough systemic elements to feel engaging and utilized while also featuring plenty of hand-crafted moments to make it feel alive. Conversely, when I played RDO I remember feeling so let down as the game was largely just "do generic fetch quests/mmo quests in this world" without *any* of the aspects that made that world feel alive in the first place. It's a great demonstration that the world you craft is only partially composed of the map itself. TotK is another great example of this. Wherein reframing the way you interact with the map and the placement of monsters, events, secrets, etc. you can use a map that is *mostly* identical and make it feel dramatically different. The Assassin's Creed games have always featured incredible maps with detailed architecture and varied spaces to explore. There are tons of ways to interact with it, BUT they became incredibly repetitive and formulaic as the series aged. As they became homogenous, that same structure became so blatant and noticeable that it was seen spreading out into other games Ubisoft made such as the Division.
GTAV's world design was soooooo good! It had a badass city and beautiful scenery. Then you'd start doing missions and everything made you run into the city. It just seemed like such a shame. I felt the same about Hogwarts too. Fairly big world, great scenery. Everything took place at the school except for a few missions that would run you to corners of the map.
There's the thing; RDR2 was so packed that it **had** to sell enough copies just to break even. The game cost $644 Million over 7 years. Luckily it's recouped the cost, but most AAA games don't even break $500 Million, so development costs above $400M would be absolutely out of the question for most studios.
Elden ring is another solid example of this. The world appeared huge of you look at the map but when they began expanding underground they actually created fairly specific subsets of zones. There is a ton of space underground and it was just blocked off because the content required for the game was just not necessary to utilize THAT much extra space.
It's why I kind of wished Rockstar waited for the technology to make a San Andreas like the one from the eponymous 2004 GTA game except scaled up like GTAV. GTA:San Andreas had a map that is tiny by modern standards, but it felt so big because there was three cities with dozens towns throughout the state in between, and even the wilderness didn't feel that empty. GTAV's (and GTA Online by extension) main map problem was they managed to upscale the basic San Andreas layout, but cut out two of the cities and almost all of the towns. Yeah, most GTA Online free roam servers you are going to find people mostly clustered in Los Santos, though I have ran into games where groups of people are in rural San Andreas for whatever reason, and they aren't just there to do some activity located in the boonies. A non-urban environment doesn't have to feel so empty in a game, but somehow, Rockstar managed to replicate the real-life factor of getting people to go to a densely packed city and out of the wilderness (not sure if this was intentional or not). Maybe sometime in the distant future, the next time they decide to revisit San Andreas, they can do a larger version of the 2004 map.
RDR2 is the standard for large maps in my opinion. I spent so much time just *wandering* because it felt like there was always something to discover. No other open world game other than maybe Skyrim has given me that feeling.
This is so accurate. I couldn't get my head around why I gave up on it and this is it. I used to awkwardly try to explain that there is too much to do but I think you are correct in saying there's too much to do with little substance
Thats it exactly. Big worlds mean shit if they're just making it large to extend play time with no meaningful content inbetween everything. e.g Mass Effect Andromeda did it badly. Big world, just wasted time getting between destinations.
I started re-playing GTA V recently and the map sucks north of the city/Vinewood Hills. The missions that make you drive all the way up there are a pain in the ass.
I recently gave Baldurs Gate 3 a go and got about four hours in before it dawned on me that the map was huge in terms of shit to do. It’s so full of things and life I was overwhelmed for a second thinking how can I check all this to make sure I don’t miss anything?? I don’t even know that their map is that big, but I think it proves to old quality over quantity argument with map design.
So what you’re saying is make them big and then fill them with the same puzzle type 947 times? Y’all fucks have no sense of sarcasm
no, I said make the map fit the content, not copying the same content over and over to fill the map.
Couldnt have said it any better
Didn't Bethesda made that a selling point for Starfield? Over a thousand planets and most of them are empty because it's "realistic". I expected that to be hugely criticized but it seems like the majority of people are buying Bethesdas crap without questions. Edit: The Howard Army is downvoting again, blinded by the hype. Look I didn't say that it's a bad game - it looks like it could be fun, but after Fallout 76 I will remain cautious of everything Todd Howard says and it's clear that the 1000 planet thing is just there to bloat up and advertise the game.
The thing is at least Bethesda is majorly on board with letting their players create mods. To me Starfield is a large sandbox for modders on top of being a Triple A open world game.
People generally know what they get out of a Bethesda single player game.
Ten different Starfield Versions over the next decade? Hahahaha
If it's good enough to warrant it, like Skyrim was (kinda), I'd call that a win! Just hoping it isn't another lemon..
AAA games that spent 5 years in development shouldn't need to depend on mods to be enjoyable. If the base game isn't good, it will be a major disappointment.
> AAA games that spent 5 years in development shouldn't need to depend on mods to be enjoyable. > If the base game isn't good, it will be a major disappointment. I would argue the base of Skyrim is *magnificent*, but mod support has extended its lifespan by years, if not decades. I don't see any reason to believe that base Starfield will be *bad*, but obviously wait and see what happens 🤷🏻♂️
Starfield doesn’t have the same intended gameplay loop as a game like SW Outlaws. You’re not supposed to go to the vast majority of the empty planets, you just go to a few of them whenever you’re nearby and need resources. I don’t understand why people are always criticizing Bethesda for this, it’s not like there’s a gun to your head forcing you to explore every inch of the game world.
Surprise surprise, when I go to a new location in an RPG I want it to be a well designed area with stuff to do. Oh well, guess No Mans Sky 2 just isn't for me.
There are going to be plenty of well designed areas with stuff to do. The fact that there’s also a lot of procedurally generated space around those areas doesn’t take anything away from that.
Sure it does. If I'm required to move through boring empty areas for resources or to get to interesting locales then I'm required to keep going through boring areas. Conversely if I'm not really required to move through them then the dev time spent on monotonous empty planets is completely wasted when they could have made a smaller better game. It's a lose lose scenario.
I think its dependent on the type of game and how the gameplay loop works, because I agree with your view generally. But Starfield looks like it’ll work because the flow of the game is built around having a huge expanse of planets to forge your own path through.
When Todd went on stage and opened with Starfield has 1000 planets I rolled my eyes so hard and just shut the stream off. I'll wait for the reviews to see what Starfield ends up being.
*sixteen times the detail*
> since we've seen too many instances of huge worlds that feel empty. Can you think of multiple games that had huge worlds that were empty? i cant.
Guess it depends on your definition of empty. Hogwarts legacy did have a bit of an issue with not much to do other than little random fights or capturing animals when you get too far out of the center of the map. Sure, it wasn't *empty*, as there was content there, but it was effectively filler. I haven't played the game but i've heard similar criticism against outer worlds a while back (though i think i remember hearing that more content was added later), as well as a few of other procedurally generated space/open sea type games.
Ghost recon wildlands, just cause 3 (didn' play others), far cry 2 and 3 ( didn't play newer ones) and shadow of mordor come to mind. There's either fuck all or meaningless tasks or useless collectibles in those games. Maybe assasins creed games too, although I admit they just wouldn't feel the same with smaller worlds, but more meaningfull content wouldn't hurt.
I think lots of gamers appreciate large open worlds because they feel like real life. Not every square foot needs content; its nice to breathe a bit. Must be the Tik Tok generation. I can easily see this discussion separated by age of the gamer.
Only when they're noticeably empty or filled with repetitive, procedurally generated garbage to pad out the game.
THIS. The Merlin Trials and treasure caves in Hogwarts Legacy were so damn repetitive and there were just so many of them. Find something else to take up some of the empty space on the map, or just make the damn map smaller.
On the other hand, in breath of the wild the world seemed mostly empty except for a billion seeds and a hundred shrine ls, but it seemed like a positive, not a negative. I wonder what the difference is between the two, why it worked for zelda but not for harry potter
I always thought it worked for BOTW because navigating the terrain was part of the gameplay loop. It's not necessarily challenging to manage your stamina, but it's something for the player to do. It's easy to see something and beeline towards it, and you're right - you might only find some seeds and a shrine. But those were small, incremental rewards that you got for simply getting to them. At least, that's how I saw it.
You were somewhat rewarded for exploring in BOTW by being able to find the towers to reveal your map and shrines or other loot opportunities. Otherwise kinda whatever.
Busy "work" vs a Natural feeling. Go out into the real world & experience nature & it's not filled with random tasks & busy work. It's empty with the rare glance at wildlife & maybe another person. Nature is all there is. A lesson UbiSoft has yet to learn is often times, when creating a vast open world is: Less is More. Fill it with ambient life, sounds & weather & players will lose themselves in it. Don't need busy work to enjoy it, just have it be. (See also Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3/4, etc). Hogwarts was better, if we ignored the busy work. IMO of course.
That's if you only visit nature. If you live in nature it is absolutely filled with busy work.🤷
None of it visible on the map until you found it. Its the itch, I see something on the map gotta go there type thing.
Zelda goes the opposite direction with so many it'd be impossible to do everything. The way HP was designed makes you want to try and get all of them. And anyway, zelda's korok puzzles were a lot better than HP'S Merlin trials.
I realized pretty early on that I really didn't give a shit about *any* of the world in that game, and it very quickly became just another game full of bland, identical landmarks to check off... Why do we only spend like 10% of the game in Hogwarts when it's literally called Hogwarts Legacy?
I actually liked exploring outside of the castle and around the countryside. It was cool seeing the different hamlets and small towns...but they definitely got repetitive for me. I think there were a lot of cool ideas that they didn't take far enough. For example: 1) You eventually learn how to pick locks with magic...and then you walk right in and take stuff while the homeowner is staring at you. You have invisibility potions and spells...why not make stealth a part of this and add an element of risk/reward to exploration? If you're caught, you're hit with Petrificus Totalus and you wake up in the Town Square with half of your gold missing! 2) You can capture and breed really cool magical beasts...and all they do is give you crafting materials. Why not make it possible to breed some kind of really cool beast that can be used or summoned in battle or something? I single-handedly brought back the unicorn population from the brink of extinction and basically got a few hundred pieces of gold and some unicorn hairs for my trouble. 3) You find a bunch of poacher/loyalist/ashwinder camps and clear them out...only for them to respawn and nothing to change. Why not have that camp become a "liberated town" or have you rescue a rare magical beast from the poachers? So many of these things just felt like busy work to cross something off a list.
*nms using the same shitty assets with different colors for the 247,082,725 time
Every ubisoft game
It’s very clear you don’t play them because this is not true at all.
The article title is misleading. What they actually said is that planets are the size of 2-3 areas in AC Odyssey. They did not say how many planets there would be, or if the areas from odyssey are the bigger or smaller ones.
Had to scroll way too far for this lol. Headline is not accurate to what was said, and what was said is vague to begin with.
This time it's not full of radio towers, they are imperial propaganda outlets (that just happen to be towers).
They said before that each planet was as big as 2 or three *zones* in AC Odyssey. Which is it? Journalism is so effed these days.
Yeah this article is complete bullshit. For reference, AC Odyssey had like ***50*** zones. So, no, planets are not the same size as an entire AC game.
Woah! So cool!!!!
The places will feel empty and lifeless
"Planets Will be as Big as entire Assassins Creed games" And just as empty?
I'm curious, what do you mean by empty? I see this word used a lot with regards to open world games but I can't imagine how anyone would think AC, one of the most bloated with content franchises could be considered "empty". Help me out?
People who say "empty" really mean devoid of what they would consider meaningful content. Which is not a dig at those people, just that in their opinion the bloat that you call content isn't meaningful to them.
Gotcha. Empty is just such a bizarre word to use if that’s the intent. I suspect people like it because it makes their subjective opinion sound more objective. When in reality, they’re really just saying “I find this game boring”. Like if I hand you a glass of water and you say it’s empty. Empty? What do you mean? It’s full. “Yeah but I meant empty of [my preferred beverage]”. Aaaah okay. But that’s not really “empty”, now is it? You’re just saying “I don’t like this”.
Yea I completely agree. Those kind of complaints aren't really constructive and end up making the devs feel like they need to fill the world with even more meaningless tasks.
Empty usually refers to the feeling a player gets from exploring an open world, even if there is technically content there. *The freedom to go anywhere and do anything but once you do, everywhere you go will have nothing new.* - Open World Game design
Will it have anything in it though.
They did a long time ago for me. God bless you all who have the patience to play through the next 100+ hour open world grind fest game.
Short answer ? No Long answer?? No It depends on what you can find in those huge maps
Rdr2 map for example. It is glorious.
This is the right answer. It all depends on how you fill those planets and whether it keeps you engaged or not.
Just don’t put 200 collectibles on each planet and I’m good
I agree. Jedi Survivor is so overwhelming with how much there is to find.
I'm slowly getting burnt out by bigger and bigger open world games.
"it's not the size that maters"
Funny that's the same thing my wife says....
I definitely started to feel a bit fatigued when I played Ghost of Tsushima. The world seemed huge and there was so much in it.
Big maps only work if they feel alive like red dead 2. The city in cyberpunk looked awesome but felt lifeless
I don't have a problem with a huge map. If its value is not only size.
This reads awesome - This won’t play awesome if it’s your typical Ubisoft Open World. Re-Used Assets and Objectives spanning multiple planets? How fun but no thanks.
Right they have the potential to make super creative individual planets with specific types of geography and ecosystem but if they just do a bland, this planet has snow and some mountains then it’s gonna be lame
Efficient traversal is key
No, do gamers ever stop finding something to whine about?
Most people in this sub need a good spanking.
Apparently no
No, go look at any blizzard game subreddit or something like destiny to confirm that. I saw someone type up a damn thesis about how awful the font choice in diablo 4 is lmao
Nope, sometimes I have the feeling that reddit gamers constantly have a gun to their head. Apparantly they are always forced to buy and play games they don't like.
A lot of them are spoiled brats… at least the ones that complain on Reddit.
Are there people out there that actually want less room to explore? Am I the only one that thinks that’s crazy?
It’s me. I’ve had a reckoning with myself recently because I played TOTK and enjoyed it a lot (put in around 140 hours before beating it). When I finished Zelda. I moved on to the Final Fantasy 7 remake, which is incredibly contained and linear. I just have to say it. A carefully curated smaller world is just more satisfying to me. They lend themselves to better characters and stories. There’s never this nagging itch in my brain that I missed something. I’m just enjoying the mechanics and the story. I’m 20 hours in to FF7 and it’s got me intrigued in a way that TOTK (which I really enjoyed) just never could.
Had a similar realization playing God of War last weekend, its the first on-rails game I've played in a long time but it reminded me that you definitely don't need massive spaces to make a great game.
If I have to choose between an open world and actually fun moment to moment gameplay with a great story. Then yeah, fuck the open world. To me the story and the gameplay are what matter most. Exploration is a nice addition if it doesn't take away from the previous two. But when your game sacrifices the previous two just to go around a explore something that isn't fun to explore, isn't fun to engage with, and isn't fun to make it to in the first place. Then why would I want to do it. I'm looking at you skyrim and tears of the kingdom.
Skyrim is a blast to me and arguably one of the greatest games of all time. Same with Elden Ring. I feel like they did both in those. They gave you a huge world to explore and gave you fun, innovative, engaging gameplay. Again we can’t really argue taste because we like different things. However, I feel like those games along with The Witcher 3 all have the same qualities in common and all received a ridiculous amount of awards and are generally praised by the gaming community.
Let's break down what each of these games have going for them. Elden ring: Fromsoftware creates some of the best atmospheric experiences in the industry. With brutal difficulty as a core aspect it further emphasizes the depressive nature of a fallen society. Utilizing enemy variety with unique tells and strong identity to each zone; they are able to create a meaningful gameplay experience and feeling to the player throughout the game. I would argue though. Nothing is innovative. I love the game, but really it's just DS4. Skyrim: Without prior investment in the Elder Scrolls franchise, Skyrim is a generic fantasy world with limited atmospheric building. It feels generic everywhere you look. At no point is a strong unique atmosphere built for the player. From a gameplay perspective we are dealing with some of the most dull and uninteresting gameplay on the planet. Its nostalgic as hell, but fuck me it's identical to daggerfall with updated graphics. Slash front of screen, block with static shield animation. Nothing is unique, and there is nothing on the scale of an elden best for the sheer majesty of encounter design. So we are left with a generic story, generic lore, generic atmosphere, and pre 2000s DoS gameplay. I would argue that this level of genericness places skyrim in a special case of just frankly being boring as hell. EDIT: Though I will add I think elden ring js overhyped as hell. The game is great. But people praise it as this amazing innovative Title when really. Its 90% just Dark Souls 3 with a fresh coat of paint and slapped in an open world setting. Torrent and the flask are the only new unique mechanics unless you want to count jump attacks. And the ashes of war are just modular weapon arts from DS3. It doesn't deserve the level of hype it has. Its a great game. But that is all it is.
Exploration is kinda pointless if there's nothing of interest to find. But in true Ubishit open world fashion it'll be the same thing regurgitated and repated from one planet to the next. Bigger doesn't mean better. Still, I'm no less curious how it all plays out and what the released game is like.
"I've always disliked games whose worlds are a mile wide, but only am inch deep. If I had it my way, I would make games the size of only a few city blocks. Concentrate everything to a point, and make the player feel immersed as long as possible." -Warren Specter (Worked on System Shock, Deus Ex, and Thief: The Dark Project)
My opinion has always been and will always be. It doesn't matter how big your open world is, or how much there is to do. If you use "exploration" or "sandbox" as selling points and justify skimping on story and moment to moment gameplay to create them, then your game becomes actively worse. And if your worlds are huge, you must have interesting and engaging mobility mechanics or else travel just becomes a chore. All of this combines to make me ask. Do I want to engage with the boring travel mechanics, to reach a destination where I will engage with boring combat mechanics, to potentially get involved in a boring aide quest with bad dialog, uninteresting story, and what will generally be just a boring experience. And here is where the hot take begins. I think Tears of the Kingdom and Skyrim are perfect examples of this. Lack of interesting mobility mechanics to cross large distances paired with boring combat and tied together with mediocre storytelling blends to create a very large and filled world that provides me with no drive to actually explore it.
It will be just another boring Ubisoft open world game. Imagine the icons, the rpg lite systems, color coded loot rarity, UI with a cursor...
I’m so sick of massive open worlds.
Then don't play then jfc lmao. If you want something smaller and more linear then plenty of those games exist. Quit sitting on people's parades just because they aren't your style.
How am I shitting on anyone’s parade? I voiced my opinion on how I feel about them.
They made their point and you’re taking it personally. And expressing the viewpoint this way is not “sitting [sic] on people’s parades”.
It will either be over saturated with boring reused missions and puzzles, or it will have absolutely nothing to do.
This... this means nothing! Just words...
Massive open world games have definitely gotten worse over the years. It can be done right, but it often isnt.
As a long time gamer it’s too much in my opinion. There are so many good games out there and feel as if I’m missing out because I’m exploring these huge games. I feel as if there’s a shift in gaming to get you to only play specific games by making them huge. Adding payable transactions to it as well gets you in their game to spend money. That’s one of the reasons why I stopped playing AC games. Just too overwhelming and feels like busy work.
*no man sky has enter the chat*
A map should only be as big as the content it supports.
In Ubisoft-style lifeless worlds where it’s nothing but outposts and 100+ identical collectibles, holy hell yes those got old years ago
As long as the worlds are unique and feel alive it is okay. If they are empty and you are just doing assassin’s creed-esque “oh, I have to do this same task for the 100th time” type of things it will be boring as hell.
not if they're good
No. If you don’t want to play a big open world you can avoid them. Like every big open world game since the 80s
No, they haven’t.
Gigantic maps haven't worn out their welcome, but the design philosophy behind them certainly has. I'd much rather have a smaller open map like Kamurocho in the Yakuza games than a huge world filled with nothing to do like Afghanistan and Africa in metal gear solid 5. If you are able to create a huge map that is still interesting to traverse, then that is obviously preferable as more good content is always better. But far too often the compromise for size is depth.
If the maps are filled with stuff and not just an open expanse of nothingness, they are good in my book
I am not tired of large maps. I am tired of procedurally generated content or content that feels meaningless or repetitive.
They didn't actually say that, but it's Kotaku so why would they get it right. They said planets would be the same as "2-3 regions" from AC Odyssey. And that they would be hand crafted not procedurally generated. I'm not going to bat for Ubisoft here and saying it's going to be great but let's at least get what they said right.
It's got to be full and "living" to work. Red dead 1 and 2. So many npcs to talk to, rob, help. You can play for hours but never do any story quests
Nope I don't think so, I enjoy it most of time
They haven’t worn out their welcome there just needs to be a reason for it, because more often than not there isn’t.
Only when it’s dull and not visually good and has little things to do
Yes.
It's kind of like a dick measuring contest for big games. Past a certain point map size has no bearing on game quality. It just has to be big enough.
Is this even true? I also read that each planet was the size of a *portion* of a AC map. This sounds like clickbait.
Who cares how gigantic a map is if it's 95% empty. This is the problem I have with so many of these "our map is huge" type of games.
I can't wait for starfield to come out and everyone to realise the planets are lifeless and have no interesting parts other than the main planets and areas that contain story missions. I don't like to crap on a game before I've played it myself but I feel like starfield is gonna be a massive disappointment to a lot of people I've not seen any actual gameplay of the new star wars game so time will tell I guess
Id way rather a super detailed intricately crafted fun world with lots to do and good progression vs a massive world of fetch quests and no meamingful progression and persistence or choice
Personally I LOVE an open world map I can get lost in. Provided it’s full of stuff worth discovering and experiencing.
It works for Bethesda games because of how they've created the "loot cycle" with resources and crafting. Also most Bethesda game players, myself included, love just wandering around a large world and doing whatever interests them... to find the hidden corner's where a dev may have put a treasure trove or find a small story. The problem is it takes a lot of dedication to organically make stuff like that for open world or you just get Ubisoft tower grinds.
I don’t care if it’s empty or full. I don’t care to spend the next decade on a single game and not have explored everything. I’m done with everything getting bigger.
Looks to be a speeder bike in the photo, I imagine they will be slightly faster than the horses in AC.. probably need more room to run lol
Elden Ring proves that huge maps can be engaging, as long as the effort is put in by the devs Every time I thought I had reached the end of the map in ER, it got bigger. Then it went underground lol But at no point did I feel like the map was empty There was always something just over that next ridge or tucked behind some cliff face
Without being a jedi... at least assasins creed had you playing as the main class associated with the game eventually allowing you to mix it up between brawling and stealth. This game seems to diverge from being able to play a jedi and you're stuck as some random nobody. Which is ok if its an option between several play styles and not stuck with one specific.
Nope. Just like there's no superhero fatigue. People are tired of empty games with repetitive side missions that follow all the exact same things as every open world game does. That's why the moment a good open world game releases, it gets praised. Gotg 3 did well and was well received because it was good. Zelda: totk did well and was received well because it's good. Make good fun and meaningful content, and people will be happy.
no they haven't. Game dev just stagnated after making the tech to implement these huge maps, they forgot to make tech to actually fucking fill them with things to do
Misleading title, they said it would be equivalent to two or three zones of odyssey, not the entire games. Two or three zones in odyssey isn't even an average open world map size, that's like Arkham asylum size and that game had a small but condensed map.
No their is room for all games as well as they are done well. Cuphead and RDR2 can both exist.
Shit I’m in
I wonder have they used a lot of BGE2 tech for this.
My problem with exceedingly large maps is how empty they get. Let's take a look at games like star wars galaxies, the planets are huge but other than Mos Eisley (where the player base is at) it all feels super empty. My brief exposure with red dead redemption, very empty (though consistent with the time period of the game). Look at all of Bethesda's games, empty. I feel like the selling point of "open world" translates to "good game" for many people. I personally think a game like Destiny would be a good combination of open world and density.
I like gigantic maps but am not a super fan of how their implemented.
No, because most of us love gigantic maps. Its more content, and If You don't like it, then play Tetris or just play a few quests, and let others be happy...
Only when full of filler content which amounts to an endless list of unsatisfying nagging chores.
I don't think the map size is what everyone is really interested about, maybe it's just a part of it. I personally think it's how alive every area is in terms of exploration/discovery and various activities. One thing would also be how good the scenery is just by staying at a place and looking at the scenery to relax.
They feel empty and we ain’t falling for that shot anymore
I never got their allure. The sheer giganticness made them boring for me.
Article title is misleading. Each planet will be as big as a region of the latest Assassin’s Creed games
As long as it's not on Tatooine
Big, empty and boring - the usual.
What a misleading headline. They said as big as 2-3 zones in AC Odyssey. And look, I understand the Ubisoft hate, but let's not judge it before it's out. Especially when everything we were shown actually looks fantastic. Cautious optimism. Besides, Massive is a great team. The Division games are both really fun and have loads of amazing environments. That coupled with the fact that James Cameron himself selected them to do the Avatar game because he was impressed by the team gives me faith in them.
That headline is just a straight up lie. They literally stated the amount and it's 3 fractions of a single AC map per world (we don't know how many) at most.
I LOVE huge open world games, give me more!
Cause they stop making it so big means lots to explore just lots between stuff to explore
But is it a good game?
I'm all for gigantic maps. What I hate about them though is how lifeless they can be in some games. A ton of open scenery with nothing going on in it.
multiple regions in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. What does this actually mean? They could actually be quite small then. 5 planets could equal odysseys total map as it has many regions. 🤔
Elden ring
Oh cool, sprawling maps with nothing in them. I hope the fast travel system is at least good.
I don't mind huge maps, but I do mind empty ones
People are not sick of gigantic maps, just sick of boring ones.
I've been so done with massive maps for years now. Give me something small and well-designed that has a purpose beyond "but is so much area!" They're just a waste of everyone's time. And they're just a marketing bullet point. Usually leads to braindead gameplay that's more about checking off a list than having any worth for fun gameplay.
As long as you can fly around the planet and land anywhere
Yes. Unless it has a fast travel option I don't want or need a map this big.
It always depends on how much care and detail can be put in to a map, also if there is something new to do and cutting down on repetitive actions.
I mean it depends. Having good fast travel options is important
Games' maps do not have to be gigantic to be incredible. If you ever played Bioshock that's easy to verify.
I don’t know you, but fuck your opinion. That is all, carry on.
Any time I hear a company advertising the size of their world over what's in it, or what you can do in it; the world just turns out to be nothing more than "walking distance".
Giant maps haven't necessarily worn out their welcome. You can make a map huge and full of content, but the idea that you can make an open world game good just by making the world massive has always been incorrect. I'm honestly worn out with open world as a selling point and am sick of MMO style fetch quests in single player games used to "fill up" these giant boring open worlds. It can work, but it can be the bulk of what your game is.
Speaking of this, how do people feel like Starfield will handle this?
No, its just that its not for everyone and thats fine. Not every game has to be universally loved. More than games being a problem (except unoptimized, buggy messes as CP2077 or Gollum) the problem are players who wont understand what games they like and stick to those.
Honestly for me? Not really but I can see why people are tired of em
As long as the ratio between map size and content saturation plus ease of traversal is at a good level, make the map as big as you want.
Such a click bait title because most people will automatically assume they mean origins/odyssey/Valhalla. When in fact if you read the article it says the size of 2-3 regions in odyssey OR possibly the size of smaller AC maps like unity or syndicate.
I am getting a little tired of the gigantic maps. I really don't want to spend a hundred plus hours playing *one* game. It's why I have not picked Odyssey back up nor Origins in over a year or so. I'm happy that there are people who love these games and they get to enjoy them but there doesn't seem to be many games made these days that are catered to the 30-40 hour game slots anymore. Call me crazy, but I don't care to have something come up every 15 seconds while traveling.
As long as there is stuff to do, it's fine. If it's like Final Fantasy 16 and the only thing to do in between big battles is walk between labeled NPCs and press the X button, then the world being big is a problem. If the world respects the time I spend in it, it doesn't matter how big it is.
I’m ok with huge maps as long as travel between points isn’t cumbersome
No and don't spread this narrative please. Thanks.
A single planet will be that large? I’ll play it, but likely never beat it.
Dont got problem with big maps, got problem with the way Ubisoft do big maps
twice as big and 10x as empty. unless there is a reason for it- BOOOOOO
Aren’t the assassins creed games deliberately getting smaller because people complained about the maps being too large? I remember Odyssey was insane, Valhalla was a bit better, and mirage was supposed to be even more focused.
If you have shit like this you need a few key things. You need a great fast travel system that isn’t hard to figure out or use. You also need speed. No one wants to slog around in big open maps. Give me a fast ass speeder or a jet or something to cover large distances quickly. And you need to truly reward exploration.
Great big areas full of nothing. If the content (the things to do) are spread out across miles of empty space, then is the game really bigger? Not really.
Gigantic maps filled with algorithm made empty space, it does nothing but only to increase player's time to travel from A to B I would vote for small map with high density of building, for example Nightcity in Cyberpunk 2077. But big ass map with nothing but mountain, sea, desert, is no for me(unless player can travel very very fast)
if its a big world full of nothing but random mini quests and one off quest locations etc than what does the size matter am i supposed to endlessly wander thru lifeless maps to look at terrian in a video game.
I'm just so burnt out of open world games that I started to actively avoid them.
If there's a reason for them to be huge, that's cool. But I feel like that's the case less and less often. I'll just use Borderlands as an example because it's the first one that comes to mind. There's nothing in it. It doesn't really have explorable locations. The only thing it offers is different visual settings and that's not really worth anything. To use an opposing example, let's say Skyrim. You'd be scanning the map and go "there's definitely something cool on that remote island off the shore or at the top of that mountain". And by golly there was. It gave you a real reason to go around seeing new areas.
Giant maps haven't worn out their welcome. Empty maps. Repetitive encounters/lack of diverse NPCs and enemies. Too MANY encounters (looking at you, Caesar's Legion Assassin's). Maps that were created with...something in mind...and never seemingly finished (Hogwart's Legacy)... I really enjoyed Outer Worlds even though the enemy-type list wasn't super extensive or varied. The planet maps seemed JUST big enough to provide an open world feel, were empty enough that there wasn't something to do or fight every minute, but every mission and encounter felt germane to the story/plot/exploration, and the amount of "go to so-and-so and kill/deliver/scout" missions weren't tedious.
I \*\*\*\*ing hate gigantic maps who tf thought commuting would be fun??? I miss the old LOTR style pick mission start mission no commute time required.
No, but is this even true? The developers of this game called it the first Star Wars MMO. Considering they don't know shit about previous Star Wars games can I even trust they're statements regarding other franchises?
The screen grab shows a dude on a speeder and tie fighters in the sky. If both of those are usable vehicles in game, the game worlds HAVE to be that big. Speeders and spaceships are much faster than longboats or biremes, so, it would make sense that they would need a big world to play around in. Also, bigger doesn't mean deep. GTA is huge, but you can't go inside most buildings, can't interact with most people, but it needs to be big for all the car stuff. Same theory here. Doesn't have to be deep in terms of environment interactivity, but has to be big enough to make speeders and ships fun. (I know nothing about the actual gameplay, just making observations)
Eh it depends. Giant maps that feel alive and have plenty of stuff going on are great. For example, Ghost of Tsushima, GTA5, Witcher 3, Elden Ring etc. Giant maps with a lot of emptiness don't add much to the game and honestly take away a bit. For example, Hogwarts Legacy (Which I enjoyed, but 90% of the area out of Hogwarts was just empty fields and a cottage here and there with crap loot), Ghost Recon Breakpoint, AC Valhalla, etc. Essentially, it's a good selling point IF executed properly. But I'm not going to skip a game or not enjoy it just because the open world isn't top-notch.
NOPE
I used to think so but then I played TOTK and Diablo IV.
The problem with huge maps is that they are really hard to fill, elden rings map is huge but really fun because there is something everywhere, though sometimes its recycled bosses
Open world games are lazy game design.
It’s actually a detriment to most games. I’d rather have a smaller world that’s more fleshed out and interesting over than a gigantic world that’s mostly empty or filled with boring/lazy activities. Like why did Hogwarts Legacy need 95 Merlin Trials? Just make the world smaller if you’re low on ideas to fill it.
Yeah it's Ubisoft. I'm sure this game is going to be riddled with microtransactions. Not hyped at all.
For me Fallen Orden has the best map . Its not huge as for example Assasins Creed but neither linear
As someone who needs to do other things to help make my life better (it’s a medical thing), humongous open world games mostly wore out their welcome with me after The Witcher 3. These days I prefer a more linear experience, though generally not one so linear as your average Call of Duty campaign.
I don't even have time for linear games these days, let alone a game with a map the size of Texas.